Gash (The Skulls #13)

By: Sam Crescent

Chapter One

Charlotte Bilson placed her hand at her throat as she glanced across the table at a fuming Gash. He looked bigger than she imagined, and she placed her hand around her neck, just to make sure everything was fine with her. Yep, her neck was still in place, which was a relief. Coming home to find Gash inside her apartment, and not only that, to have him attack her, hadn’t exactly been the kind of welcome she wanted.

“Did you have to attack me like that?” she asked.

“I didn’t attack you.”

She raised a brow, but didn’t actually say anything to him to refute him. It had been years since she last saw him. Age had done wonders for him, and yet it hadn’t at the same time. He was harder than she remembered, colder too. There were times where she recalled him always smiling, always laughing. Now, the man she once knew was gone, dead almost. He constantly wore a frown, and he was staring at her as if he’d like to kill her. She’d been in his company a matter of minutes, and yet she saw the change inside him, the darkness.

He does want to kill you.

“Do you know what the word attack actually means?”

“You’re alive.”

“That has nothing to do with the word attack. Seriously, get a dictionary!”

He stared at her with his cold eyes. “Do you really think you should be testing me right now?”

“I don’t give a fuck. You come into my place, attack me, and now you want me to treat you like what? Some fucking person I know?” She hadn’t unloaded her anger in over five years. It had been two years since Gash’s release from prison, and he had gone down for five years before that. Seven complete years of living without a damn care in the world. Her life meant shit to her, quite literally. She didn’t care.

“Tell me where Rebecca Charleston is,” he said, moving from his position at the table. He grabbed a chair, turned it, and sat down so that he was leaning on the back of the chair.

She started to laugh. “I don’t know where she is.”

“You said you’re going to help me.”

“I promised to help you, Gash. I didn’t tell you that I knew where Rebecca was. I said I’d take out, but I don’t know where she is. I don’t know where either of them are. I figured you’d know. You came to me, not the other way around,” she said.

“Why did you think that?”

“You found me.” She shrugged. “I have to say I’m surprised.”

“You think after serving five years for a rape and murder that I didn’t commit, I’d leave you alone.” He reached out, tucking some hair behind her ear, startling her.

“What are you doing?” she asked, jerking away.

“Nothing.”

Shaking her head, she went to stand up, but Gash grabbed her arm. She didn’t want him to be touching her. The last thing she wanted was his tenderness. Gash hadn’t come back into her life with sweet words. He’d come with threats.

“I didn’t give you permission to stand up, so sit the fuck down!”

Yanking her arm away from him, she lowered back down in her chair. She didn’t like how she felt just from the touch of his fingers on her arm. Did he remember their time together at all? One night where he’d taken her virginity, blown her world, and he didn’t have any recollection. Should she be embarrassed that she wasn’t that memorable?

God, she’d stopped thinking about all of this shit since she got out of a fucking mental ward, and now he was back, making her relive it all again.

Not all of it. Gash wasn’t responsible for what that bastard, Jeff Wright, did to her.

Forget about it. Stop thinking about what happened, and focus on what is going on now.

“Will you stop manhandling me?” She cradled her arm against her chest. I’m not going to be affected by him. He means nothing to me, and he clearly doesn’t know what I’ve lost.

“What’s your problem?”

“You’re my problem. You storm into my apartment, attack me, and now you’re ordering me around. I’m not a damn child, so stop yelling at me.” Her heart was pounding. This was not the kind of reunion she ever imagined having with Gash. She didn’t imagine hearts and flowers, but she didn’t imagine this, accusations, threats. They had been friends once. Didn’t that account for something? Her throat was a little sore from where he’d gripped her around the neck.